


Winter In New York, 2009

by Callmeisolde



Series: Matt and Nat Take New York [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Almost maybe canon compliant, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, First Meetings, First time writing Matt's senses, Fluff, Just adorable damaged people meeting for the first time entirely by chance, MCU refuses to give enough details to make a proper timeline, Meet-Cute, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 03:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12808674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmeisolde/pseuds/Callmeisolde
Summary: Winter 2009, the year of the Snowpocalypse. Matt's too proud to call a cab and Natasha's from Russia. Enough said. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's fate. Time will tell.





	Winter In New York, 2009

Matt

Winter in New York is getting more extreme every year.

Used to be, the temperature would dip and people would complain but life would continue with its familiar litany of ups and downs. Routine would shift; more time indoors, more money tucked aside for cab fare, more complaining (even for the everyday New Yorker, it was possible). Things never ground to a stop. Not like they do now. Late November and they’d already seen record-breaking snowfall. Kids were tobogganing up and down the walking paths in Central Park. It was a mess.

Most of the year, Matt had no problem navigating the city blocks that made up Hell’s Kitchen. From one end to the other, he could traverse them in record time and with precision. For a blind guy, that was a bit of a feat. Especially since he didn’t do it on the ground or in a cab. Rooftops were his preferred method of transportation. That normally didn’t change come winter, when cabs were harder to get, traffic slowed dismally, and sidewalks became treacherous obstacle courses. Problem was, the amount of snow they're getting this year is messing with his head.

More than any physical sense, and four of his are impressively calibrated to make up for the missing fifth, Matt uses memory to get around. It saves him from having to concentrate his physical senses on movement. He can afford to listen for pursuers, cries for help, taste the air for distantly fired weapons or the copper tinge of blood. If he has to concentrate on shifting snow drifts, surprise puddles of water, surprise _frozen_ puddles of water — it all gets a little murky and vague. Hard to gauge a landing. Hard to judge the amount of leverage required to get from rooftop A to rooftop B.

And snow. Matt hates snow. It gives off a drifting halo of cold obscuring other heat signatures, absorbing the tastes and smells of whatever it touches. Matt would approach a fire escape only to realize what he'd been reading as a solid metallic obstruction was in fact, eight inches of snow ready to trap his foot and absorb his momentum. He would round on an assailant only to momentarily lose track of their position because they’d been kicked into a snowdrift and their heat signature's disappeared. When it rains every drop gives off a small ripple of sound as it lands on an object. It still plays havoc with his sense of smell and ya, it's not the best for traction either, but at least he gets a clear idea of where things are. When it snows, each snowflake lands with a tiny muffled thud and then instantly melts into nothingness, creating a shapeless, melting haze like the whole world is an ice cube sitting in the sun. Or a kids ice cream cone dropped upside down on the sidewalk. The sound snow makes is a low, constant hum that swallows his senses like a black hole.

This time when Matt tells Foggy he bruised his arm and cut his face falling down a flight of stairs, he isn't exactly lying.

So he’s on the sidewalk when he senses her.

She’s a haze, at first, of warmth. Approaching from behind at a steady pace unhindered by icy sidewalks and randomly drifting snow. Her heart beats a steady rhythm just below what Matt considers normal for her approximate size and pace. Athletic? Her body mass is dense with muscle, her heart beats like an acrobat's, conditioned, even in the cold. There’s no scent of sweat or exertion even under the wool coat. Matt’s heart rate hovers around 50 beats per minute at rest, right now, however, he’s pushing 60. She’s having an easier time navigating than he is.  

There’s a metallic note to her floral perfume, Jasmine, bergamot. It drifts and the snow absorbs it, catches it, drives it forward so it seems like it’s already pressing into his back when she’s still three paces behind. There’s something else below the scent of perfume and the steadiness of her heart. Fading traces of gunpowder. Copper, blood, antiseptic. He presses himself further out of his own body and catches the way her instep lands a little gingerly like she’s cushioning herself. Injury? Not bleeding actively, the copper would be overpowering, but not fully healed. Bullet wound? One week old, ten days?

She’s one pace behind him when her heart beats a strange two beat elevation like something's startled her and she lunges forward. Matt’s immediate instinct is to dive out of the way, but her hand grabs the belt at the back of his wool trench and he lurches to a stop. The sounds of traffic buzzing past on 54th street slam into him like a brick wall and he over-balances backward. There’s an embarrassingly long moment when he’s teetering upright, his dress shoes unable to find proper traction on the slick pavement. He starts to fall backward and hears an exhaled “Oomph” as the woman catches him, one arm under each armpit, creaking of exertion as she settles over her knees into the proper angle to support his weight. He scrambles, trying to straighten out and it takes an agonizing thirty seconds for him to find purchase.

“Easy.” Her voice is low, rough, syrupy like honey scraped over gravel. He can smell the traces of the butter chicken she ate the night before, a balance of spices he can almost pinpoint to a specific Indian takeout spot Foggy likes. She had Kasha and Tovorg for breakfast, reminds Matt of his elderly neighbor, Russian?

He leans his body weight forwards and rights himself, turning to face her with a look of contrition. His body is raised palms and knees bent and he’s about to say the words when she laughs. It’s the tinkling of broken china, her chest constricts and her throat hums.

“I’m so sorry.” He can feel his face burning against the cold air, hopes she assumes the redness is from cold alone.

“No harm.” There’s a tightness at the edges he interprets as a slight smile. “Are you alright?” Something in her voice, the remnants of an Eastern European accent.

“Better embarrassed than a smear on the pavement,” he exhales, corners of his mouth reaching for something like a smile. His heart rate is certainly elevated now. He’s ratcheting up near 80 beats a minute.

The woman's hand reaches out from the warm trunk of her body. A soft, rabbit skin mitten finds the back of his hand. “I know I’d feel better if you allowed me.” Her voice is a caress of warmth in the cold, a self-deprecating twist to ' _I’d feel better'_. That light touch has a distinct meaning in the blind community. She wants to guide him across the street, doesn’t want to make him more embarrassed than he already is.

He nods, maybe his expression is contrite. He hopes so.

Her hand shifts so that she’s standing parallel to him. From that guiding warmth he can find her arm. He holds it lightly just above the elbow. They stand in silence for a minute while the lights hover between changing. Matt’s heart rate is recovering, hers has remained a steady pounding drum. She doesn’t shift uncomfortably or try to make conversation.

“Walk symbol,” she tells him as the traffic changes direction.

She steps off the curb and Matt follows dutifully just behind. Once they reach the other side he hesitates, drops his hand, pushes his glasses a little further up his nose from where they slid when he overbalanced.

“Thank you.” His voice is a little rough, he forces a lighter tone. “For saving my life.” Flashes what Foggy refers to as his “lady charmer”, a grin that starts on the right and ends midway left. Lopsided, Foggy tells him, it screams “mischievous, dashing, not quite a gentleman”. Matt usually just thinks of it as a smile, but he knows how to use it strategically when required.  

Her heart stays steady, not attracted to him then. No problem. He turns to go. 

“Hey,” her own voice echoes a little of the mischievousness in his expression. “Where are you charging off too, straight into danger?”

He can’t help it, he laughs. “That’s right, I live for the stuff. Point me in the direction of danger and I’ll stumble my way into the first bad guy that stops in front of me at a crosswalk.”

She surprises him again, looping her arm through the crook of his elbow. “Onward then, good sir. To danger.”

Maybe she likes the look of him after all? He’ll have to report back to Foggy on the success rate of the 'lady charmer'.  

“Right. I’m actually heading to my office.”

“Where do you work?” She asks, voice lilting upwards with genuine curiosity. He takes the clue and they fall back into step, this time shoulder to shoulder. Wherever she’s going, it must be in the same direction.

“Law offices of Landman and Zack, but don’t get the wrong impression,” he chuckles. “When I said ‘my office’ I meant a five by four broom closet previously used for file storage.”

“Glamorous.” Her head dips so her low chuckle is dampened by the open weave of her cashmere scarf. He’s getting the impression she’s well funded. His trench coat only looks impressive, hers smells and feels it.

“I don’t know how they managed to get our desks through the door.” He admits, shaking his head.

“Red light.” She tells him. They pause on the curb.

“It’s on 56th and 8th. Where are you headed?”

Matt’s ears start to hum as the snow starts up again. She turns her face up a little and her heat signature wavers as warmth evaporates along the curve of her cheek.

“Just walking,” she says, no lie in her heartbeat despite the fact her gait from before screamed purpose.

“Out here?” He pauses, gesturing, “in this?” She turns to face him and he feels like he might overbalance again in his enthusiasm.

“The city is as quiet as it can be,” her voice a little softer, a little sweeter like the honey is crystallizing and dissolving in the warmth of her mouth. “The only people braving the sidewalks are you and me.”

She’s definitely smiling. So is Matt. She leans closer, her body heat gently folding around him so that, if someone else was watching them with thermal goggles, they might see one form. Another note to her perfume makes him dizzy—orange blossom, vanilla. She has to stretch her leg muscles slightly, reaching upwards with a craning of the neck to kiss him very chastely on the cheek. The humidity in the air between them spikes with the mingling of their breath. She moves away and the spot that held her warmth burns against the air like a brand.

“Maybe I’ll run into you again, danger boy.”

Matt inhales a little quick, his lungs complaining at the sudden onslaught of cold. His next words escape in a gasp. “I hope so.”

He listens to the crunch of her footsteps for three blocks until the burn of her kiss is only a memory on his cheek.

Maybe he’ll find something to like about winter, after all.

Natasha

There's something special about winter in New York.

Natasha's often felt that way since coming to America. The temperature isn't oppressively cold like some places in Russia, more closely reflecting the humid continental temperatures of Stalingrad, where she was born. She often catches herself smiling at the complaints and grumbling. _Hah, you think this is cold. Try the Yukon in November. Try Moscow in January. For that matter, try Antarctica in July._

But the grumbling comes from an innocent place. People who've never been outside the confines of their city, some not even beyond the boundaries of their own neighbourhood. People in New York come in two varieties. Those that travel incessantly but always came back, like they're magnetized, and those that feel the pull of that magnet so strongly they could never leave. She’s met plenty from both groups. New Yorkers love their city. Natasha wants to love it too.

Fury told her, more or less, she'll have to. A lot of shit goes down in New York. Something about the crime rate, the disparity of wealth, the sheer diversity from one block to the next. Then there's the spiking number of enhanced individuals popping up all over the place.

She'll undoubtedly be sent back here again and again. It will serve her well to spend time in the city. Get to know it. Establish some level of realism for her cover. That’s not why she’s here though. It’s a _reason_ to be _here_. It’s not why she’s on mandated administrative leave. The two-week-old bullet hole in her abdomen is why she’s on administrative leave. Best not to dwell though. She's strictly forbidden from dwelling on the Winter Soldier. Keeping her heart rate even and her breathing carefully controlled is better for healing. And she still has to get exercise. Hence the afternoon walk.

It’s brisk, but she knows how to dress for this kind of weather. She momentarily considered where she was going, decided against planning too carefully. This is about getting to know the city, right? Better to head out and keep walking until something interesting happens. This is New York, something interesting is bound to happen.

The city is undoubtedly, unabashedly beautiful this time of day. Hell’s kitchen stretches four blocks to her left, mostly mid and low-rise buildings, industrial areas, gentrification creeping over from Midtown in the form of street-level retail and coffee chains, art houses, theatres. Midtown towers close on her right, glass high rises glinting in the bright light. Not a cloud in the sky, just expansive, exhaustive blue dotted by softly drifting snow. All of it reflected and refracted by the windows of the high rises. The mix of old and new, jutting up against each other like dinosaur bones in an art museum. That’s what reminds her most acutely of home.

She’s considering all this when her thoughts are interrupted by the tap-tap of a white and red cane. The man in front of her is blind. She feels a momentary jab between her ribs, something like pity. The feeling filed away along with the realization that they’re effectively alone on this stretch of walkway. The only two souls braving the sidewalk on a frigid, snowy November morning. What’s the emotion she’s reading in the set of his shoulders? Determination? Concentration? His footsteps slow slightly and she continues her pace to pass him on the left. They approach the street corner, the light changes, he doesn’t slow —

Natasha reaches out without thinking and catches the belt of his trench coat, noticing his instinctual reaction to pull forward out of the way even before she touches him, as though he can sense her movement before she acts. She pulls backwards, not gently, and his entire body tenses as he begins to overbalance. His momentum from the forward movement swinging backwards over his centre of gravity. She braces herself, knees bending before his entire body weight lands in her arms. As she takes his weight the bullet hole in her stomach complains — loudly — all the muscles in her abdomen contracting around it, remembering there was something not right. She lets out a forced exhalation around the pain, lungs momentarily refusing to cooperate with the deep breathing technique she was practising a second earlier. Her next inhale restores her control, telling her body to calm, reminding it that there’s no immediate danger.

She supports the stranger under each arm until he manages to get his feet under himself and leverage his weight back over his legs. Natasha takes a respectful step backwards as he turns to face her. He’s handsome, she’s not sure why that surprises her. Roughly the same age as she is, straggly brown hair that looks hard to comb, a mouth that looks expressive and easy to read, cleanly shaven. Red glasses balance low on his nose, she can see a sliver of his wide, hazel eyes and dilated pupils. He turns his hands upwards in an apologetic gesture. His face is all screwed up like he can’t quite control the look of embarrassment and she catches a slight crinkling at the edge of his eyes. He looks like a kicked puppy and she can’t help it, she laughs.

“I’m so sorry.” Oh, and he blushes, his face turning several shades of red. A warmth blossoms somewhere in Natasha's chest and she squashes it with regret for making him more embarrassed.

“No harm,” she smiles warmly, a real smile, waves a hand in dismissal. “Are you alright?”

“Better embarrassed than a smear on the pavement.”

She bites her lip, he has a sense of humour about it. That helps.

“I know,” a slight hesitation as she reaches out. She knows the proper way to guide a blind person. She knows a lot of things. She touches the back of his hand. “I’d feel better if you allowed me.” She thinks for a moment she might have miscalculated. Clint has told her plenty of stories about what it’s like to have a disability in a world that only sees weakness. She knows something about being underestimated. She’s a woman, after all, and a spy. Half her job is playing on a man's innate desire to protect her, to shelter her, to trust her.

And maybe he does trust her. She did just save his life.

He’s not wearing gloves, his hand reaches out and finds her arm, just where she telegraphed it would be. He grips her very gently above the elbow and they step side by side to the edge of the curb.

“Walk symbol,” she tells him when the light changes. He falls into step behind her as they cross the street. Natasha tries to make it as casual as though they were lovers, out for a stroll, holding hands.

When they reach the other side he immediately pulls away and for a moment she misses the connection they shared through the gentle touch. The warmth of his hand on her arm made her stomach twist, just a fraction. Not in a way that makes the bullet hole ache, something besides the muscles and the torn flesh. Something deeper and more intrinsic. _Winter in New York._ If she were another woman, mid twenties, whole life ahead of her, she might be walking like this, with a handsome young man arm in arm. So when he flashes her the lopsided grin, flatters her with a smile -- she teases him. Draws out the interaction, needy for the return of his hand to her arm.

The sound of his laugh is grating stones like he doesn’t use it often enough. Natasha loops her arm through his. “Onward then, good sir. To danger.” Let’s play pretend. Today, Natasha is building her cover. Today she is Natalie Rushman, and Natalie Rushman is a flirt.

“Right. I’m actually heading to my office.”

“Where do you work?”

They chat a little. She’s curious and he’s forthcoming, charming. Natalie has lived a charmed life, never had to work much for the good things, parents have money. Natalie likes boys, has liked a lot of boys. She likes boys with wild hair and martyr complexes. Natasha wonders if her handsome blind stranger has a martyr complex. Natalie thinks he might.

He’s a lawyer, fresh out of law school. He works for Landman and Zack. He shares a too small office with a friend. Natalie reminds Natasha that she isn’t gathering intelligence. She focuses instead on the warmth of his body, the way they must look to people in the passing cars. Just a young couple, out on a walk in the snow. _Pas de Deux_ , Natasha supplies, a dance for two.

“Where are you headed?”

Natasha turns her face up to the sky, letting the small, perfectly formed snowflakes alight on her skin where they turn into eddies of cold.

“Just walking,” she says.

Something in him is warmth and passion and _New York_ when he gestures, “Out here? In this?” There’s a laugh caught in the corners of his mouth and she wants to tease it loose, but there’s always been something spiritual about freshly falling snow. She soaks in the moment, wondering when she’ll get another like it.

“The city is as quiet as it can be, the only people braving the sidewalks are you and me.” Carefully chosen words, _you’re brave_ . She thinks, to herself, to him. _You’re a New Yorker in the snow._ She lets herself smile. His face is like a mirror in a softly lit room, reflecting back just the attractive parts of her expression. She leans in, maybe this is foolish, but it's fun. It’s easy. It comes too easy. She kisses him, lightly, softly, like a snowflake on his cheek.

“Maybe I’ll run into you again, danger boy.”

He inhales quick, coughs out a gasp, “I hope so.” And she does too. She hopes they meet again.

There’s something special about winter in New York.

#

Six months later, after Tony’s “I am Iron Man” shifts the world and several important political powers, Natasha is in New York again. She’s sitting in a cafe in Midtown East, wearing a blonde wig that irritates a patch of skin at the base of her neck. She picks up a newspaper, Daily Bulletin, and her eyes widen when they find a familiar face. A handsome twenty-something with wild hair and round glasses. The caption says, “Matthew Murdock: Attorney” and the article includes a quote about Tony Stark.

 _"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,"_ Matt tells the reporter, _"When men like Tony Stark enter the scene with the power to level a building, what action are they inviting in return? Evil always rises to meet goodness, and it will continue to do so with bigger and bigger guns to match and outmatch the force it opposes. I hope Tony Stark does away with Iron Man, before we’re left with an Iron world."_

She pulls up the file in her head labelled “Winter in NY, 2009” and adds the addendum, “Matthew Murdock”. Files it all away for another day, another moment, another time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I plan to do a few more for this pairing and add them later. New favs. Comments are, of course, love.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Winter In New York (Comic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13610724) by [Callmeisolde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmeisolde/pseuds/Callmeisolde)




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